Online Photo Albums

Free online photo albumsComparing Flickr with Picture Trail

Many stampers/scrappers wish to have albums to share work on message boards here and there on the net. The two most often discussed are Flickr (a photo sharing site) or Picture Trail (since Zing went down) so here is a quick comparison. At the end of the article, a few other choice places to store your work then share.

The free version of Picture Trail, has a bandwidth limitation as well as only 75 mbs upload limitation in total. Update: The free version is good for 30 days then you must pay annually.

Flickr does not have bandwidth limitations and Flickr gives you more free space (1 terabyte) than Picture Trail.
However, Flickr does put a monthly size limit of 100 MBs of uploading on free accounts per calender month, this is much more than Picture Trail! Once you reach that, you cannot upload till the new month comes around nor can you delete to get space for that month back. If you are not uploading lots, then you should be ok. Update: Uploading limits have been lifted at Flickr! Everyone gets 1 terabyte.

Picture Trail you can move pictures around in albums and in order.
Flickr you can not move pictures around so you have to upload in reverse order if you want a set that has a chronological order to pictures (like a tutorial). Update: Yes, you can now organize your photos at Flickr!

Flickr also allows you to use tags and put pictures in sets. One picture can be included in many sets or have many tags, like a sorting system.
Picture Trail does not have this feature.

Picture Trail has many slide shows to choose from but remember, if you have a free account, there is bandwidth limitation if you post it on your website/blog and have many visitors (Idea: do not post on your main page, but on another page with a link from the main page. This is so that only those who click on the “gallery page” see it reducing bandwidth.). Paid accounts don’t have to worry about that as bandwidth is unlimited.
Flickr has their little badges and a person can click on a picture and be taken to that image at Flickr. Most badges are the perfect size for a sidebar.

Picture Trail allows you to customize your site.
Flickr does not but now allows for a banner type image at the top of the screen from one of your shots.

Picture Trail annual payment is smaller ($19.95) than Flickr Pro ($24.95 grandfathered but now about $50. per year for detailed stats and ad removal).

Both offer general stats for views.
Both offer no sharing controls so no one can right click and save your picture.
Picture Trail offers password protected albums.
Flickr, you can select contacts to view certain albums/sets keeping them private not public.
Flickr also has internal “FlickMail”, Picture Trail does not have internal mail.

At Flickr, you can add other people’s pictures to your favorites or create a gallery using other people’s pictures (they will know about it).
You don’t have this perk at Picture Trail.

At Flickr your site can be private and kept out of search engines but RSS is still offered on the bottom of your page and all your contacts will be able to see your fresh uploads on their account activity page when they log in.
You can also join pools of like images exposing your image to more viewers. On free accounts, you are only limited to 20 pools per picture, paid accounts can put their pictures in more pools.

Paid/Pro accounts at Flickr can embed images elsewhere on the net without getting the red box. So for free accounts, no sharing off the site only a link to get to the photo is allowed. Update: Sharing allowed on all accounts and you can limit photo sharing.

When I have done searches for images, I have never seen any images from Picture Trail show up unlike at Flickr. Also, public images at Flickr are picked up onto a site called Flick River if you do a search for any image that is public and posted on Flickr.

Ipernity — free accounts with limitations, cannot download images on a free account or share images on a message board. You also get a blog, can upload files, and get a chat box. More of the old clean Flickr look. “Club” cost is under $50. for 2 years and you get a little icon near your name for status purposes.